Publication: Human Opportunity Index - National : Equality of Children's Opportunities in Pakistan
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2012-06
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2012-06
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This paper complements the World Bank's recent report on poverty by providing some additional information on inequality. In contrast to reports that analyze measures of inequality of income or wealth (such as the Gini), this paper focuses on equality of opportunities of children, where opportunities refer to access to basic services and goods (access to education, health conditions and basic infrastructure) that improve the likelihood of children to maximize their human potential. It introduces a new metric to Pakistan, the Human Opportunities Index (HOI), that combines the overall coverage rate of the opportunity with a penalty for the share of access to opportunities that are distributed in an unequal fashion. The Human Opportunity Index was developed recently at the World Bank and has been estimated now for over 20 countries in Latin America and Africa.
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“Newman, John. 2012. Human Opportunity Index - National : Equality of Children's Opportunities in Pakistan. World Bank Policy Paper Series on Pakistan;no. PK 8/12. © http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17883 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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Publication Human Opportunity Index - Provinces : Equality of Children's Opportunities in Pakistan(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-06)This paper complements the World Bank's recent report on poverty by providing some additional information on inequality. In contrast to reports that analyze measures of inequality of income or wealth (such as the Gini), this paper focuses on equality of opportunities of children, where opportunities refer to access to basic services and goods (access to education, health conditions and basic infrastructure) that improve the likelihood of children to maximize their human potential. It introduces a new metric to Pakistan, the Human Opportunities Index (HOI), that combines the overall coverage rate of the opportunity with a penalty for the share of access to opportunities that are distributed in an unequal fashion. 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Egypt has made significant progress in the availability of and access to basic services for children and mothers, in some cases with an overall pro-poor effect. In particular, appreciable improvements have been made in healthcare utilization before and during pregnancy and immunizations. As a result, there has been a decline in inequality of opportunity over the past decade, largely attributable to increased coverage by basic services rather than through redistributive effects. However, there are areas of persistent and emerging concerns, including postnatal care utilization, nutrition, and schooling. Nutrition indicators have deteriorated during the 2000s, affecting a quarter of children regardless of their circumstances. Wide disparities in school enrollment persist, notably at the higher levels. Large regional disparities in access to basic infrastructure exist, with Upper Egypt and the Frontier Governorates lagging the rest of the country. 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The three main findings that emerge from this initial monitoring exercise are: (i) Chile does well in providing fundamental basic opportunities, but not as well on more advanced indicators such as quality learning, completion of secondary on time, access to some tertiary education, as well as bundles of services for early childhood development, and youth development; (ii) inequality of opportunity in Chile operates mainly on the basis of parental education and location, and (iii) a sound monitoring system of the equitable provision of opportunities for all may help the Chilean society strengthen consensus towards equity and provide policymakers with the right incentives to design and implement better policies to address these issues.
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